One Hundred and One Dresses
by eleryra
Summary: Until a year ago, she only possessed one black dress...


Author: Eleryra

TITLE: One Hundred and One Dresses

Summary: Until a year ago, she only possessed one black dress.

Rating: PG-13; K.

Classification: Vignette

Spoilers: Cancer arc

Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be.

Email: eleryra AT gmail DOT com

Until a year ago, she only possessed one black dress.

Complete with waist belt; a thin, elegant, simple strap of shiny lacquered plastic.

And black pumps.

Short, practical, thin heel, softly curved at the tip. Anonymously matte, they have comfortable leather insoles, for walking long distances.

Or running after the next run-of-the-mill mutant.

She wore it at her sister's funeral.

She had opened the closet door, peaked inside unsure of what she could find, as if, suddenly, something out of the ordinary could jump out.

Not that it hadn't, she reminded herself. And her own life seemed to be filled with bizarrely asymmetrical Kodak moments of insanity, a liver-eating mutant grabbing her ankle in the bathroom, a psychopathic killer through her living room window, an anonymous note from an international conspirator through the slit under her door.

She wore it demurely. With a black overcoat and no jewellery. She wore it to be unnoticed, humble, respectful to the sister she knew could not possibly see her, but wanted desperately to please even in her last hour.

She stood out in the crowd, instead. Unusually unnerved by the way her six foot partner could almost blend into the background, in his tailored dark green suit.

Her cross caught the dim light of the day, contrasting the darkness of the cotton fabric that covered the skin on her sternum.

By January of that year, she had bought another one: one to wear to her own funeral.

When the cancer had taken a turn for the worst, she had dwelled on how to possibly tell Mulder about it. That there would be no more chasing after flying saucers, mysterious healers, shadow government members, abducted women, or lousy motel stops, for that matter. That the bruises she had received from running after the latest informant would possibly remain on her skin until past the day of her funeral, that that particular day was so much closer than she, herself, could have possibly considered.

She had obsessed over it, worried about it. Then she had simply bought the dress. At a department store. Sleeveless, because who cares what time of the year it is when your skin is as cold as marble. She had looked at the receipt and considered slipping it to him, in between the psychic dog file, and the ghost ship sighting. Possibly enclosing a note that suggested this was going to be the last dress she ever wore.

But she doesn't speak to him. Not in written words, not in spoken ones. She waits for him to stop hovering between sorrow and guilt. To look at her as he had done before. She knows this is as much of a death sentence for him as it is for her.

So she doesn't tell him about the dress. Nor does she mention the worsening headaches, nor the occasional trouble speaking and breathing, nor the almost constant ringing in her ears.

She waits. For him to come to terms with it. To accept what she keeps telling herself she has accepted.

She doesn't buy shoes this time. She is not going to need them.

He walks into the office that day, holding a pastrami and cheese sandwich, and a lettuce, chicken, and fat free mayo salad for her.

"Scully, did you know that the California Department of Motor Vehicles has issued six driver's licenses to six different people named Jesus Christ?"

She looks up from her file and removes her glasses. She is tired. Her nose has been blocked for over a week now.

He throws his jacket loosely across the chair.

"Are you suggesting Jesus Christ is out there somewhere in California?"

She massages the bridge of her nose, relieving the tension for a brief second.

He doesn't look.

"I'm suggesting if he is, he's surely trying to keep up with technology."

She shuns his joke and looks uninterested. "Where do you get this information anyway?"

"Does it matter?"

"It depends, are we going to have to book two flights to Los Angeles to investigate multiple incarnations?"

She picks up the bag he leaves for her on the desk and opens it. The smell of mayo is almost overpowering.

"If we do, then you might be interested to know that American Airlines saved around $40,000 in 1987 alone by eliminating one olive from all the salads they served on first class flights."

Her stomach flips and she feels the urge to empty it in the small toilet down the corridor. She resists the temptation and frowns lightly instead.

He notices and stops to look at her. He looks like he has not released the breath he has just taken.

I'm fine, she would normally say.

I'm fine, she should say now.

I'm fine, that's what she has always told him.

But she looks at his green eyes, and sees the devastation of a single minded, obsessed man, who has seen too many people die, who has thought many of those deaths had to do with him.

She has one special black dress, sitting in one far corner of her closet, hanging from the railing, solitary, separated from all the other clothes by a few, meaningful inches, like a pause between words, before the last important one.

She left it there, apart, like a statement. She left it for her mother to choose, without her thinking she has bought it on purpose. Like a subliminal message.

She touches her nose absently, a subliminal message to the man in front of her.

I'm dying, she wants to tell him the truth. She breathes in and keeps it in for a second too long. He knows.

_Mulder_, she wants to say,_ you're going to have to chase the Jesus Christs on your own. _

The door softly clicks open and she is shook out of her reverie. She looks at him smiling tentatively at her from around the corner.

He has been so affectionate since her admission to the hospital. Before the chip, before the healing, before the news.

Overstepping boundaries without the pretence of a bad joke or innuendo.

He stands awkwardly between her and the door, and she turns her head around to give him a polite smile.

She is rummaging through her bag, open on the bed, sifting through clothes, lumps of dark coloured fabric.

"Hey, you're up," he says and he sounds surprised.

She smiles but he can't see her, her back to him, now, as she takes out a pair of cream tennis shoes and looks at them.

Shoes.

She smiles.

"You know, I think it's untoward that Skinner should spend so much time outside your room. Is there anything I should know about?"

She looks up from her bag, towards the window and the light radiating from beyond the white curtains.

"Mulder, how did you know that I would say yes, to this chip I put in my neck?" she asks, maintaining her neutral voice.

She can sense his mood shift, he is uncertain. His arms are still, next to his sides.

"I didn't," he says. She turns around and looks at him expectantly.

His eyes linger on hers for a moment, then look around, almost searching for an instant answer he could hand her.

He lifts his shoulders and drops them, in a tired motion.

"You are a scientist, Scully. I knew you could have not denied yourself the opportunity to test one more of my abstruse theories," he says. She looks at him, and he continues, "and the opportunity to prove me wrong," he finishes with a smile.

Shoes, she thinks, you gave me the opportunity to buy and use shoes.

And a thousand colourful dresses.

She smiles at him.

"What are you doing?" he asks as he notices her bed is made and she is packing the content of her bedside table's drawer back into her suitcase.

"I am packing for California," she says, and she turns again to him.

She walks up to him. Never has she had a stronger desire to wipe the puzzled look from his face as now. But she can't blurt it out. She had thought he would have seen it in her eyes the moment he stepped in, but this was Mulder, a man so blinded by the light of the explosions created by his own bursting disappointments that he could not see what was now shining bright in her eyes.

_Blue, yellow, gold, white, cream, green, pink, red…_

She inched closer to him and lifted her thin hand to his stubbly chin.

This time she oversteps the boundary of personal space. No innuendos, no jokes, no desperate dying moments.

_Orange, cerulean, maroon, purple..._

She smiles at him, a full, toothy smile, mentally laughing to herself, as she had never thought she could possibly find herself smiling about looking forward to endless days of chasing little gray men, killer children, legendary creatures living in woods and lakes across the country.

His eyes widen in realisation and his hand flies up to cover hers, holding it against his cheek.

She smiles.

He can see through the blinding pain of his private obsessions. She is there, alive, living.

"We leave first thing tomorrow morning."

"Scully…" his voice cracks.

_You gave me a hundred colourful dresses. _

"Let's go and find your motorised Jesuses."


End file.
